Monday, January 1, 2018

On
December 19, 2016, actor Jerry Lewis sat down to do an interview with journalist
Andy Lewis from The Hollywood
Reporter. One of the goals was to discuss, among other
things, the contributions that Lewis and his nonagenarian colleagues continue
to make to entertainment. Since the seven-minute clip aired, it has been dubbed
“a train-wreck” and “the most painfully awkward interview of 2016.” Throughout
those seven minutes, Lewis provided primarily monosyllabic (yes/no/why?)
responses to questions or a “Why should I?” and so on. During the course of the
interview, the journalist’s and the performer’s voices start to betray more
than a hint of frustration. People watching Jerry Lewis’s THR
interview on-line or listening to excerpts during various
radio or television programs might have laughed or squirmed in sympathy for the
interviewer.

I
was immediately fascinated.

The
first time I watched and listened to the interview I wondered and suspected
that Mr. Lewis is a physical
suggestible because he answered each direct question with a
yes or no answer. As I have explained in previous blogs about emotional and
physical suggestibility, this person receives information differently. For a
Physical, message units are taken in literally and directly: an object is this
or it is that; a direct question is answered directly and literally. Conversely,
someone with emotional
suggestibility automatically infers meaning or significance to a question
or comment, and is likely to provide more details than necessary when answering
it. Andy Lewis might have been able to elicit additional information or
conversation from his subject with more or differently phrased open-ended
questions. However, even when he tried this tactic, his subject stayed true to this
one-line-answer patter.

Hmm.
Someone with physical suggestibility and/or a physical sexual personality
also like to talk, to provide explanations and make sure he is
understood. That is why, for example, a physical suggestible typically provide
a lot of details or back-story when working up to his main point in a
conversation. A physical sexual individual tends to be comfortable and relaxed
and even enjoy being at the center of attention, which Mr. Lewis does not seem
to like at all (on this occasion, anyway). An emotional sexual
personality is more likely to provide more direct or even
terse responses (written or verbal), as Jerry Lewis does during this interview.
An emotional sexual also prefers to avoid being center of attention or even
noticed much in the first place, which seemed to be what was going on in this
case.

Based
on what I saw in this interview, I believe that Mr. Lewis is an emotional
sexual personality with emotional suggestibility because he does elaborate on
some of the yes/no information he provided. When he answered the interviewer’s questions
with another question (“Why?”), these responses suggest that he was
evaluating/analyzing every word he was asked and making a case-by-case decision
how much information to provide.

As
a final note, one of the rules of handwriting
analysis is that the way a person writes is a reflection of
his behavior and personality traits. It is a snapshot of your mood at the time
the sample is produced. It would be interesting to compare how much of Mr.
Lewis’s behavior during those seven-plus minutes would show up in his
handwriting.